A father and son team have created replicas of the Transformers robots out of scrap metal using instructions downloaded from the internet.

Peasant farmer Yu Zhilin and his son Yu Lingyun use pieces of scrap metal they have collected from disused cars in Hengyang in China to construct huge robots, similar to the characters of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee who appeared in the multi-million pound films. They have just sold an army of the metal robots for almost one million RMB (£110,0000) constructed in their own makeshift workshop.

Xhilin decided to start building the huge models in 2007 when he realised how valuable they could be in China - where the latest Transformers instalment, Age of Extinction, was the highest grossing film ever in the country. The film targeted Chinese audiences, with Chinese car brands featured throughout and Hong Kong used as the backdrop for some of the action sequences.

The pair join a cult of Chinese people who have started making replicas of the metal robots that have earned such notoriety in the country. Last year a team of farmers in Xiaoye, a village in the eastern Shandong province, began making the models at a cost of around $16,000 (£11,000) and selling them to property developers who have installed them in shopping malls in China.